Leadership, Regulatory Focus and Project Performance

Leadership is one critical factor of effective teamwork, such as information system (IS) projects. The mission of project leaders is to motivate followers and create an effective working environment that allows project teams to effectively meet the predefined goals. However, based on regulatory focus theory, a team may strive to the optional situation (promotion focus) or try to avoid not meeting the minimum requirements (prevention). The aim of this paper is to explore the effect of leadership styles (transformational and transactional) on the regulatory focus of one team (promotion and prevention), and investigate the relationship between regulatory focus and project team performance. Based on data collected from 154 IS professionals, we found that transformational leadership is associated with promotion focus and transactional leadership leads to prevention focus. Furthermore, while promotion focus orientated teams can perform effectively, prevention focus oriented teams are less efficient. Implications toward academia and practitioners are provided

The Development of Dominant Parties and Party Systems – Taiwan as a Case Study

Of the emerging democracies in the 20th century, Taiwan demonstrates itself as a distinguished case as its pre-authoritarian party, the Kuomintang (KMT), was able to prolong its rule in the government after regime transition from authoritarian regime to democracy. According to scholars of dominant parties and party systems, Taiwan's dominant party, the KMT, existed in a dominant party system because it was able to defeat the opposition party, the DPP, until 2000 even after martial law was lifted in 1987. The existing literature investigates the factors of the development of political parties and how it links to the literature which discusses the development of dominant parties and party systems. From the discussion, I argue five factors are the cause of the development of the KMT one-party dominance including 1) social influence from the U.S., 2) the KMT’s ability of crisis management in 1971 event, 3) the development of voting behaviors affected by generational social experiences, 4) the effect of SNTV system on the development of political parties, 5) the effect of the leadership, Lee Teng-Hui, on the KMT’s party internal structure. We found that these five factors confirm our suggesting theorie

An Extended Analytic Solution of Combined Refraction and Diffraction of Long Waves Propagating over Circular Island

An analytic solution of long waves scattering by a cylindrical island mounted on a permeable circular shoal was obtained by solving the linear long wave equation (LWE). The solution is in terms of the Bessel function expressed by complex variables. The present solution is suitable for arbitrary bottom configurations described by a power function with two independent parameters. For the case of the paraboloidal shoal, there exists a singular point (α=2) which can be removed using Frobenius series, where α is a real constant. The present solution is reduced to Yu and Zhang’s (2003) solution for impermeable circular shoal. The numerical results show some special features of the combined effect of wave refraction and diffraction caused by a porous circular island. The effect of key parameters of the island dimension, the shoal slope, and permeability on wave scattering was discussed based on the analytic solution

Timing of tracheostomy as a determinant of weaning success in critically ill patients: a retrospective study

INTRODUCTION: Tracheostomy is frequently performed in critically ill patients for prolonged intubation. However, the optimal timing of tracheostomy, and its impact on weaning from mechanical ventilation and outcomes in critically ill patients who require mechanical ventilation remain controversial. METHODS: The medical records of patients who underwent tracheostomy in the medical intensive care unit (ICU) of a tertiary medical centre from July 1998 to June 2001 were reviewed. Clinical characteristics, length of stay in the ICU, rates of post-tracheostomy pneumonia, weaning from mechanical ventilation and mortality rates were analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 163 patients (93 men and 70 women) were included; their mean age was 70 years. Patients were classified into two groups: successful weaning (n = 78) and failure to wean (n = 85). Shorter intubation periods (P = 0.02), length of ICU stay (P = 0.001) and post-tracheostomy ICU stay (P = 0.005) were noted in patients in the successful weaning group. Patients who underwent tracheostomy more than 3 weeks after intubation had higher ICU mortality rates and rates of weaning failure. The length of intubation correlated with the length of ICU stay in the successful weaning group (r = 0.70; P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that tracheostomy after 3 weeks of intubation, poor oxygenation before tracheostomy (arterial oxygen tension/fractional inspired oxygen ratio <250) and occurrence of nosocomial pneumonia after tracheostomy were independent predictors of weaning failure. CONCLUSION: The study suggests that tracheostomy after 21 days of intubation is associated with a higher rate of failure to wean from mechanical ventilation, longer ICU stay and higher ICU mortality